One-way Mirror
by cge0361
Summary: A protective device that may create on one side a reflection, identical to the viewer but reversed, and on the other side, reveal something else much the same.


One-way Mirror.

* * *

It is something of a contradiction, how always following the rules means that you can get away with breaking them sometimes. Understanding that through its accidental discovery, KJ-19 carefully avoided reversing his circumstances through their exploit at a cost of not knowing where the un-crossable line lay. Calculating its position required evaluating first how much closer to it his handlers were already bringing him.

"I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, you won't get in trouble as long as you don't open your beak about it to any of the Suits."

Every living thing in the facility belonged to a caste. KJ-19 was a "Resource," and a rather valuable one. The "Coats" handled the Resources. The "Suits" handled the Coats. Finally, the "Guests" came to acquire new Resources by selecting old Resources for the Coats to co-mingle. Only a rare few members of any caste were important enough for others to learn by given name. KJ-19 knew he was one of those, despite not having one, and he knew one special man who was both a Coat and a Suit, but thankfully behaved like the former except when the latter required of him otherwise.

The Coat accompanying him led KJ-19 down one of the hallways that old Resources with facility-wandering privileges were not allowed to travel. Although his training and instinct bade him to resist, KJ-19 let the Coat lead him on. As a combusken, his claws were in their most dangerous form, and pulling them through the Coat's gripping hand could create a terrible incident. They turned a corner and stopped before a secured door. A biometric scan confirmed "Wild Bill" Daevea's right to open the door. Behind it hung a heavy black curtain that gave way to their passage after the door behind them shut. Fully inside, the room was dark, illuminated weakly by light passing through a single, large glass window. A few Coats and one Suit were already inside, sitting in a row of chairs. Bill encouraged KJ-19 to approach the window. He overlooked the neighboring room. Another Coat, serving as an instructor, guided a half-dozen new Resources through a crash-course in how to be the best fighters for their new masters. They sat quietly and attentively, although their heads seemed to nod around randomly but gently. KJ-19 remembered a similar experience. Although he was not freshly-hatched when it happened, he too spent a day under the combined influences of a half-dozen technical machines plus a particular drug intended to aid memorization of the instructor's presentation of material that the T.M.'s could not cover. Mostly it caused dizziness, but be it a placebo, it did not seem not to work and the Guests never raised a complaint about its cost when they paid their lab tab.

One of the pupils was an orange bundle of feathers. KJ-19 never saw one like it before, but he knew before Bill commented that, "that one's yours."

It was KJ-19's first torchic offspring, although certainly not his first offspring. Possessing a wonderful genetic make-up, reliably passing on useful techniques to his descendants, and being something of a charmer to boot, his dance card was always full. The only factor preventing him from being considered A-grade stock was that he was Speech T.M. positive, and like his desired characteristics, he frequently passed that on, too.

Among those nascent pokemon, the torchic beyond the window responded to its instructor in turn to regurgitate some information. It tried, but made a mangled sound. KJ-19 recognized the noise; he once had words within him that he could not properly shape.

A faint buzz preceded an opening and shutting of the door and curtain. Another Coat entered with a blaziken beside him. She recognized KJ-19 but did not respond to him, because in the same glance that she saw him with, she saw her torchic. Taking a hobbled stride, she went to the window and gazed, trilling a very faint, anguished sound. KJ-19 reached up and captured Priscila's left claw and squeezed it gently. She slowly knelt, suppressing a cry of painful strain and moved her left arm to place her palm on his left shoulder. For those within the classroom, a dull lecture seemed to last an eternity. For the pokemon near a one-way mirror, despite time having seemingly stopped, they knew this moment would be over far too soon.

The instructor left and another Coat entered. His job was to give the pupils their first experience in taking commands and sparring properly. With the help of the Coat that brought her, Priscila struggled to stand again and she was led away slowly. The other Coats left, leaving KJ-19 with the Suit. It was the one he could trust with a trespass.

"Can she stop now?"

Ulysses stood from his chair and approached KJ-19, resting his hand on the combusken's head, scratching his feathers gently. "They're going to get at least one more out of her."

"It's killing her."

Ulysses motioned to KJ-19 that they should leave the room. "Did you read her chart?" KJ-19 stopped walking. "She is dying, slowly. That makes her more expensive to care for, and that means she has to keep laying her golden eggs." They continued into the hallway.

KJ-19 caught a glimpse of Priscila just before she and her aide turned around a corner. She looked back, flexed her right claw in a gentle gesture, bobbed her head, and cawed something subtle.

"But if it's killing her—" The combusken coughed a little flame. "You Suits don't care. You just want Guests to leave money for you."

Ulysses suffered the insult in stride. "That old hen doesn't care what we want. She took her original trainer to victory in the League regionals. Then they went overseas and collected all the inter-regional titles. When her trainer wanted to go on a marital journey next, Priscila broke her ball, broke into the home of a semi-finalist she remembered favorably, and made him get her some international playoff wins. After that, she left him and found a coordinator and started a ribbon collection. When she finally ran out of ways to become a champion, she came to us so she could produce more champions like her. Yes, we make a lot of money, but we work for her. You work for her, too: when we got an order for the best torchic we could offer, we chose her to bear it and she chose you to sire it. That's why we let you two get a look at him before he left the wing."

A young Coat with the awkward aura of an intern quickly paced down the hallway with a blaziken jogging happily behind him. As he tried to slow and stumbled, Ulysses and KJ-19 realized she was pushing him along. "Sir, I need your signature on these!" The young Coat stopped, re-balanced himself after twisting away from the pokemon's claws, and gasped with exasperation as she grabbed him and squeezed the air out of his chest with a painfully tight hug.

Ulysses examined a clipboard received from the young Coat and eventually signed off on a few sheets that bore "sign here" stickers, as though he needed indications of where to put his marks. "It looks like she's ready to get busy."

"When I read, 'Eager to meet new people and pokemon, friendly and affectionate,' on her profile, I didn't know it was a warning," the young Coat replied after struggling enough to loosen her grip.

Ulysses flipped back a few pages, "you know—Nara—he hasn't been trained as a Resource handler, but if you promise to take good care of him, I might let you keep him."

"What!" cried the young Coat briefly, constricted almost immediately by Nara's re-tightening grip.

"Yeah," Ulysses continued, "you mostly do desk work anyway. We can move your cubicle's stuff into her chamber and you can keep each other company. You won't be our first employee to keep an office with a favorite Resource. It's great for morale, and something tells me Nara will help you break out of your shell."

Ulysses paused on the last page, hummed at what it had to say, and signed off on the complete genetic de-code and analysis it requested before returning the clipboard.

"Alright, Miss Nara, take him back to the room with the short gray walls in it and then he can guide you to your new—"

Emergency lights flickered and an automated recording played through the public address speakers. "Attention. Uncontrolled fire detected in Classroom 6A. All personnel stand by in case evacuation is required. Attention. Uncon—Disregard. Situation is resolved."

The classroom door opened and the combat instructor carried a torchic out and down the hall. He was now half a Coat, as portions of the one he wore were burned away and the clothes beneath were in no better condition. The rest of him was caked with extinguisher powder. Flame resistance only goes so far. As they passed the quartet, Nara piped up, "good fire little one!"

"Like father, like son," KJ-19 added, quoting a comment often uttered by the Coats regarding his yields.

The torchic twisted a little and looked back at them and glimpsed his future forms. He wanted to say something to them, but the words could not yet come.

Dropping to his knees, the young Coat surprised Nara, slipping down and through her arms and next rising beside her. He snatched the clipboard away from her. "Come on, let's go. I have to get you where you belong so I can go get lunch."

She followed him down the hallway, hesitating halfway along it. "You're buying me food?" Two of her strides caught up with three of his. "Nara picked the right one!" With her palms on his shoulder-blades, she accelerated him away.

"Like father, like son. Ulysses," KJ-19 asked, "is he going to be another Resource like me?"

"I don't know. And you know that if I did, I couldn't tell you. And you know you aren't allowed to ask questions like that."

KJ-19 grunted. "Is he going to be another Resource, like Priscila?"

"Nineteen, I… Priscila is a lot of things, and all of them great. She's not just another Resource. And, whatever becomes of QK-85, he's going to be more than a Resource. I'll see to that, for you."

"Thank you. That's—that's because I'll never see him again." KJ-19 leaned against Ulysses' left leg, considering how he never felt this way before, never saw any that were his before.

"Probably not. I hope not." Ulysses returned KJ-19's light embrace with a gentle pat upon his crest feathers. "You've already given him the best you have to offer. I'm sorry I have to tell you that, like that."

KJ-19 trilled, "No. I never knew. I felt like I was missing something."

"You are. All of you resident Resources are."

"I know. But, with a good trainer, he won't be. Right?"

Ulysses bit his tongue. "You're not allowed to wander this far from the stables. Go back to where you belong or you will be disciplined."

KJ-19 walked down the hallway and turned right. A small feather shed by a graying blaziken caught his eye. He picked it up and tucked it deep amongst the quills of his crest. She chose her trainers. She chose her mates. She chose her fate. She—was in an examination room nearby. He peeked over the window's lower edge. She received the results of her latest test. Forgetting herself, she tried to jump for joy as she had after every her victory, but it was more of a hop and almost collapsed her upon landing. Her knees buckled and the doctor caught her. Priscila was thankful in every possible way.

The combusken moved along, hoping that QK-85 got the best that she had to offer, too.


End file.
